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Forest & Bird » Marine and Coastal

1. Gerry
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   I posted this in response to Tom's blog about saving penguins on the New Zealand mainland

   "Good on you Tom.

   I agree totally with what you say. I came here to Lake Moeraki, South Westland in 1989 to set up the Wilderness Lodge because I was passionate about saving the rainforest and saving Fiordland Crested Penguins, Tawaki. The local policeman Roger Millard described to me finding 30 penguins killed on a nearby beach by a fisherman’s dog while the fisherman was concentrating on his fishing. It seemed that everyone felt it was OK to take their dogs onto the beach in the penguin areas. Under the Wildlife Act an offence wasn’t committed until the penguin was actually dead. We spent many months researching how to get dogs banned from our South Westland coastline. In the end we discovered that if an area becomes a Wildlife Refuge under the 1953 Wildlife Act you can set in place enforceable regulations that ban dogs. It took 4 years and a public process to get this through. There was some aggro from locals and surprisingly from some DOC staff who loved taking their black labradors with them everywhere!. Finally in 1994 we got a Wildlife Refuge established for the two accessible strongholds of Tawaki; Jacksons Bay and the Moeraki coastline. Enforcement was initially hard and we helped DOC with several prosecutions as witnesses to the offences. Eventually the message got out that the ban was serious and was being enforced by the locals. We have had very few problems in recent years.The local community is now very proud that we are the guardians of what many call the world’s rarest penguin, the Tawaki

   It is one small way that ordinary people can help save penguins.

   Two lessons from this are
   1. DOC has to be prepared to be tough. Set clear laws in place, enforce them and be prepared to go to prosecution to uphold them. There is a general gutless attitude prevailing in DOC these days that ‘enforcement is unpopular” therefore they don’t like to do it and fall back on the gutless approach of saying they will put their efforts into education only. It isn’t enough because you talk to lots of the fishermen and people who take their dogs into these colonies and they’ll tell you “My dog wouldn’t harm a flea”…don’t believe it. It only takes a few minutes and lots of penguins will be dead.

   2. Why on earth havn’t we got coastal communities throughout NZ who care for their penguins–these are mostly blue penguins–campaigning for more coastal wildlife refuges that prohibit dogs. It is one straighforward and commonsense way we can help the penguins.

   Every time I see reports of another group of penguins being killed by dogs I despair. DOC could take the lead and show communities how to get Wildlife Refuges. Maybe Forest and Bird should do it?

   Posted 2 years ago #

2. Gerry
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   I put this comment up above because until today we felt the Whakapohai Wildlife Refuge established in 1994 on the Moeraki coastline in South Westland that outlawed dogs was a great way to educate the public and save penguins.....well I was reminded again today why we have to keep being vigilant.

   The Refuge is only as good as its policing/enforcement

   Today is Saturday at the start of Queens Birthday weekend. You can almost guarantee that if something stupid is going to happen it will happen on these holiday weekends. DOC staff are mostly on leave. People from the towns are headed for the great outdoors and they have lots of rights and not too many responsibilities!.

   Early this morning we walked the 5km Cole Creek to Ship Creek wilderness coastline in cloudless perfect weather with a flat sea. We counted at least 100 Hector Dolphins and we delighted in watching them surfing. At one stage we saw 6 lined up surfing a single wave. One even did a somersault.

   On our way home we noticed 6 4 Wheel Drive cars parked at the entrance to a "secret" track down to our biggest local colony of Tawaki, Fiordland Crested penguins. I was a bit suspicious because when fishermen get together in groups you can almost always guarantee that they will have dogs with them so I went to investigate.

   I walked the 2km through the rainforest down to the beach. On the way at the start of the track I passed a 1 metre square DOC sign that shows a map of the Wildlife Refuge, explains why it has been established and announces that "Dogs and cats are prohibited". Just before you reach the beach there is another sign banning dogs. This is a huge 2 metre square DOC green and yellow sign all about the Wildlife Refuge and how to behave close to Tawaki penguins. It also in bold letters states that Dogs are Prohibited because they kill penguins.

   I got to the secret beach to find about 12 fishermen there. Amiably chatting to them, they advised me that they were all members of the Upper Clutha Angling Club from Wanaka over to fish around Haast for the long weekend. I knew some of them and they knew me and I do think it is good that they can share the beach with the Tawaki penguins provided they don't disturb the penguins and they don't bring their dogs. They were catching a few smallish blue cod and throwing back lots of Spiny dogfish up to 2kg in size. We were all getting on well until I spotted a small dog amongst the group of fishermen.

   "It is only a small dog. It wouldn't harm a flea" ......the excuses came pouring out. I expressed my disappointment and suggested that they take responsibility and take it away. "Well we are all here as individuals and the Club doesn't have any responsibility for what our members do". They did undertake to make sure it was secured and they wouldn't let the owner bring it back tomorrow. I just suggested that in future if they are going to come to South Westland on their club fishing trips they leave their dogs at home in Central Otago where there are no penguins!

   I will talk with DOC on Tuesday when they get back to work and they can decide what they want to do. Obviously the Wanaka fishermen are nice blokes and they seemed genuine in that they didn't realise that the dog prohibition actually applied to them (who else is it supposed to apply to?). How is it that Kiwis clearly see a Refuge sign that prohibits dogs then rationalise their actions in bringing one into the Refuge on the grounds that "it is small" and "wouldn't harm a flea".

   If you told the Customs man that your cocaine cache hidden in your luggage wasn't really illegal because it was a "small cache and was only for your own use" you wouldn't get much sympathy. Why should we have a different standard for nature conservation?

   How do we get the message over to New Zealanders that they shouldn't take their dogs into National Parks, Scenic reserves and Wildlife Refuges or any other place that has vulnerable ground birds because the evidence is overwhelming that dogs kill penguins and they also kill kiwis?

   I know the worst offenders are pig hunters who are forever losing their pig dogs in kiwi country....but even domestic dogs let loose in ground bird country are a serious problem.

   Posted 2 years ago #

3. ruby
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   very brave of you that i bet you get a lot of abuse ,well done for sticking to the right thing ethically what they did was wrong even if it was a dog with no legs or teeth it still should not be there.
   my partner has the same problem over on the east coast

   Posted 2 years ago #

4. kukupa
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   But why not let people have there dogs there as long as they are on a lead?

   Posted 2 years ago #

5. Gerry
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   Hi Kukupa. I'm actually a dog owner (Border collie working dog) and dog lover. It is really important for dog owners to have places that their dogs can run free because for most dogs a lead is a very unsatisfactory way of letting them run free. It is important then to have places you can take your dog where they can run around and I understand that there are a number of conservation areas where that is OK.

   Equally it is vital that we designate special conservation areas "dog free" where we know that there is a serious risk of dogs killing native wildlife. That's why I have advocated for Wildlife Refuges along designated coastlines to protect penguins. It is why I support National Parks and Scenic Reserves upholding the dog prohibition that is generally part of the Act of establishment of these areas. All our National Parks have either kiwi, blue duck or penguin in them.

   As a former Park ranger I know that to be enforceable and easily understood by the public, rules must be clear and simple. "No Dogs" is one such approach. It does require enforcement and that is in my view where DOC has seriously failed.

   DOC as an organisation appears to hate enforcement because it is unpopular. From the DG of Conservation down the word has gone out to go lightly on doing any enforcement. (They call it compliance) DOC far rather prefers to do touchy-feely publicity stuff all the time like releasing birds, planting trees and doing education. They even do regular polling of the public to see how their public image is faring. There is nothing wrong with these actions. But every job also has its less pleasant tasks and it is irresponsible to shirk from these.

   Because of DOC's failure to enforce dog prohibition, instead of a straightforward message from DOC "You take a dog into a wildlife refuge or a national park and you will get caught and we will prosecute you", we get this plaintiff bleating from DOC officers on TV when once again dogs kill tens or hundreds of kiwi or penguins. "Please don't take your dogs in to National Parks of Wildlife Refuges" Education is vital but it has to be underpinned by the ability to take legal action if the warnings are ignored. The DOC staff in the field feel impotent because they know that their bosses won't support them or support prosecutions because it might be unpopular and DOC might go down in the poll ratings.

   Moreover DOC have seriously weakened National Park dog prohibition laws and dogs are regularly taken into Kahurang and Abel Tasman National Parks by hunters. And where they are pig hunters, very often they lose their dogs that are then free to go on a kiwi killing spree. Apparently dog aversin training is about 90% effective....so what about the other 10% and what about when the dog is starving will it still avoid killing kiwis?

   I have still not heard back from DOC about what they have done about the dog that was illegally in the Wildlife Refuge (created to save Tawaki pebguins) that I reported to them a month ago (see posting above). Nor have I heard back from them about their actions following up my complaint about on the dog taken illegally into Westland National Park's weka refuge in the Douglas Valley. This is the haven for an isolated population of western weka, a bird utterly vulnerable to predation by dogs(read Mr Explorer Douglas to see how clever his dog was at catching weka). The Otago person who did this had to be rescued by helicopter earlier this year and he and his dog were all over national TV. In both cases DOC knows the offender and they know that an offence took place under the National Park Act and the Wildlife Act. Action?

   Posted 2 years ago #

6. kukupa
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   Cheers Gerry, I (now) agree with you. I do a bit of pig hunting and put my dogs through the dog aversion training, but it feels like a bit of a joke, because the kiwi is a stuffed one, and therefore does not have the smell. (better then nothing though) I also use the satalite tracking collars and think that every hunter should have to use them!!
   They really are amazing, you always know where your dogs are, you can get to the pig much faster, ( more humane) and you can leave a collar at the ute and never get lost again.
   Pig dogs that catch possums will alway catch kiwi too, when they are sniffing around for possum nests they are sure to come across a kiwi nest sooner or later,thats were the eletric collar is a must for training a young dog!

   Posted 2 years ago #

7. Gerry
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   Tawaki penguins have arrived!

   Tawaki, Fiordland Crested penguin spend much of their life in the Tasman Sea feeding and sleeping on the water's surface. In July they come ashore only in the remote South West of the South Island to spend the next 5 months until early December breeding in the rainforest. On July 11 2009 we saw our first tawaki for the season here in Southern South Westland. It was sitting on the shore beneath trees. There were 5 other penguin tracks across the beach so more have arrived. At Milford Sound on the Red Boat tourist cruise they saw penguins ashore 2 days earlier. In the south west, the arrival of tawaki is a time for celebration of the endless life cycle of these birds. For us it is akin to the celebration up north of the arrival of godwits from the Arctic.

   Tawaki penguins stand about 70cm high so they are about 3 times the size of little blues and just a little smaller than Hoiho, Yellow Eyed penguin. Tawaki are in the Eudyptes group (crested penguns) that include Rockhopper, Snares crested and Erect crested. Their numbers have declined significantly since human settlement but they are not in serious trouble like the Yellow Eyed penguin whose forest habitat has been largely destroyed. DOC's records show very slight decreases in tawaki numbers over the last 20 years but seasonal and locational fluctuations in breeding success appear to be more significant than any longer term decline. They are the signature bird of the Te Wahi Pounamu-South West New Zealand World Heritage Site established in 1991 to protect 10% of New Zealand's land area in the south west of the South Island. Tawaki breed nowhere else.

   Tawaki need our help to prevent people taking dogs into their colonies. Dogs will kill the penguins and are attracted by their fishy smell. There is some suggestion from ornithologists who have studied tawaki that they are powerful enough to fight off stoats and rats so these may not pose the same threat to tawaki that they pose to other native birds. But this is not conclusive.

   Here is a photo of tawaki penguin beeding habitat on the Moeraki coastline in South Westland

   Attachments

   1. Moeraki_Coastline_South_Westland.JPG (117.8 KB, 1 downloads) 2 years old

   Posted 2 years ago #

8. auckland anne
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   What a lovely photograph!
   Oh how I'd love to see footage of tawaki seeing a stoat off!

   Posted 2 years ago #

9. Helen
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   Three little blue penguins were run over in just one weekend here in Wellington recently. Better news on the dolphin front though is that a nice building materials supplier is goign to give free wood for Forest & Bird to make more nest boxes for penguins that encourage them to nest on the seaward side of the coast roads so don't have to cross them.

   Posted 2 years ago #

10. Gerry
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    Here is a photo of the Tawaki/Fiordland Crested penguins. Around July 11 these rare penguins returned to the forest in the South West NZ-Te Wahi Pounamu World heritage Site for the winter-spring breeding season. They will depart to the ocean permanently in the first week of December. Between now and then they are busy breeding and from September onwards in the ocean every day getting food for their chicks.

    We have been making a big effort in Southern South Westland to keep dogs out of these penguin colonies because the penguins are an irresistable taste temptation to the dogs. Yesterday we also found a little blue penguin coming ashore near where the Tawaki breed.

    I'm a big fan of saving penguins in their natural habitat not in artificial zoos. I am offended by the zoo operations world wide and at Kelly Tarlton in Auckland and at the Christchurch Antarctic Centre that have penguins locked in display cages/artificial habitat for the titillation of humans.

    Far better we do our best to look after the penguins in the wild which is what the West Coast Littel Blue Penguin Trust is doing here and the Forest and Bird group are so fantastic at doing in Wellington as described by Helen above. Keep up the great work.

    

    Attachments

    1. Head_Shot_Tawaki_Penguin.jpg (104.8 KB, 0 downloads) 2 years old
    2. fiordland_crested.jpg (8.2 KB, 1 downloads) 2 years old

    Posted 2 years ago #

11. auckland anne
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    So many people love Little Blues, don't they? It's great!!
    A lot of people in Auckland don't realise there are so many of these liitle penguins in the Hauraki Gulf and on the West Coast up here. However they seem to be quite delighted when they get to see them in the wild. Waitakere branch of F&B was doing it's bit to protect penguins in it's coastal area some years ago, building nesting boxes and trying to keep dogs out of certain coastal penguin habitats, but as far as I'm aware that project is no longer going (but I'd love to be wrong on that!!), so it'd be great to see the Places for Penguins campaign that's presently in Wellington being picked up in other parts of NZ and re-introduced up here again.

    Posted 2 years ago #

12. Gerry
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    The zoo people always say that the great benefit from zoos is that people, especially children, get to see and touch animals up close and therefore grow to love them. A similar argument is advanced to support feeding wild animals like kea. If people want to do that they should have a pet instead of cageing wild animals! When you observe animals in their natural habitat, you usually don't get to see them up close and you certainly never touch them unless you come across injured animals.

    It is OK just to watch wild animals/birds going about their natural lives. It can be fascinating because most wild animals do different things in different places every day of their lives. This "delight in discovery" is the real joy of being a naturalist rather than being a zoo keeper where you are often trying to manipulate animals lives to suit human convenience. I think TV show wildlife folk like Steve Irwin actually did some good in awareness raising but they also did a lot of harm because of their insistence on always trying to handle wild animals. It is what people now expect to be able to do in the wild. Notice how every TV wildlife presenter with reptiles and most other animals is now copying what Steve Irwin did. He set the benchmark. All the rest now copy because the kids watching the USA TV networks expect the presenters to constantly have "near death" encounters with wildlife.

    Many Japanese tourists who generally are fascinated by penguins, when they visit us in South Westland, are always surprised that we just observe the penguins rather than try to catch and then cuddle them!

    It is also really important that in the wild there are very tight controls on scientists and reesearchers handling wildlife. Harassment of wildlife to take blood samples, weigh the animals, put on bands, transmitters etc is always justified by the "greater good" argument but it can very easily result in physical and psychological damage to the wild animals.

    What are your thoughts?

    Posted 2 years ago #

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